


Maryse Is

by magnificentbanes



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Gen, i really love maryse, this is just a word vomit that i posted on tumblr, we need to show maryse more love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 04:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13967196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnificentbanes/pseuds/magnificentbanes
Summary: An introspection on Maryse's life from nineteen to forty-five





	Maryse Is

Maryse is nineteen when she finds out she’s pregnant. She’s terrified. She’s barely been married six months - hell, she’s barely even an adult. Everyone else is thrilled. She’s contributing to a new generation of Shadowhunters, she’s carrying on the Lightwood name, she’s doing her duty. 

Maryse feels like there should be more to motherhood than a sense of duty.

She is twenty when the baby is born. It’s a boy, a boy Maryse convinces Robert to name Alexander, the middle name of the brother she’s no longer allowed to see. His middle name is Gideon, some Lightwood tradition Maryse doesn’t care enough to learn, but his hazel eyes mark him a Trueblood. He’s small and fragile and Maryse doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she loves him. He’s the first good thing she’s ever done.

Her Alexander.

Maryse is twenty-three when her next child is born. This time it’s a girl, a beautiful baby girl with bright eyes and tufts of black hair that she names Isabelle Sophia. Sophia because, once again, it was a Lightwood tradition. But Maryse came across the name Isabelle in one of those mundane baby name books. It meant “devoted to God” which she felt was a good name to give a Shadowhunter.

Alexander, three years old now, adores his baby sister and it warms Maryse’s heart. She hopes that they grow closer as they get older, possibly becoming parabatai when the time comes. She wants for them what she never got to have with her own brother.

Maryse is thirty when she receives the news of Michael Wayland’s death. They are to take in his son, Jonathan, as they are the only English speaking Institute that has children around his own age. Maryse doesn’t argue, not only because she can’t go against a direct order, but also because she thinks it’ll do Alexander (who now goes by Alec, the name Isabelle had given to him at two years old when she couldn’t say Alexander) good to interact with a boy his own age. He’s ten years old but acts like someone twice his age. Robert is proud of him, saying that he’ll be a fine Shadowhunter when his time comes and an even better head of the Institute. Which Maryse agrees are good qualities - she just wishes he could have a little more time to be a kid.

Maybe Jonathan Wayland would be good for him.

Maryse watches her son grow closer to the Wayland boy (who now goes by Jace) until they are inseperable - where one goes, the other follows. She feels like her family is finally complete.

Until.

Maryse is thirty-three when she gives birth to another baby boy, a baby she never expected to have. This one she names Maxwell Robert - Maxwell for the brother she’s no longer allowed to see and Robert after his father, who insisted that one of his sons bear his name. Maryse didn’t remind him that they all had his name, the Lightwood name. 

She loves Max as dearly as her other three children, but she’s tired. She’s running an Institute and she’s too old to be changing diapers and getting up in the middle of the night. So Max’s care falls onto Alec’s shoulders, as does most things. Maryse knows it isn’t fair to task a thirteen year old boy with raising his baby brother, but she’s too tired to care.

She’ll thank him one day.

Maryse is forty-three when her son falls in love with a warlock. 

Maryse is forty-four when she watches her son stand up at the altar where he once almost signed away his life and marry the man of his dreams, becoming immortal in the process.

Maryse is forty-five when her oldest son comes to her and tells her she’s a grandmother. She is forty-five when she holds Sophia Catarina Lightwood-Bane in her arms. She is forty-five when that beautiful little warlock girl captures her heart in a tiny fist.

Maryse is forty-five when her life really begins.

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on tumblr: magnificentbane!


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